A Bad Attitude: A Novel from the Vietnam War

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What Breed of Liberal I Am

My Liberal Identity:

You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, Netroots activist, or Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservative hatriots must be exposed and mocked for every fanatical, puritanical, soulless, paranoid, fact-free, obstructionist ideal for which they stand.

More Quotations

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

-- Henry Kissinger

"When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist."

-- Archbishop Helder Camara

"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creeds into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics."

-- Robert A. Heinlein

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

-- Voltaire

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."

-- Malcolm X

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."

-- Eric Hoffer

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."

-- Sinclair Lewis

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people."

-- Adolph Hitler

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

-- President John F. Kennedy

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."

-- Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine, 1615,during the trial of Galileo

"Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely-powerful infinitely-knowledgeable universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life."

-- Andrew Lias

"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life."

-- Sigmund Freud

"All wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance."

-- Samuel Johnson

"Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both."

-- Benjamin Franklin

"It is in no way lawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, of writing, or of religion, as if they were so many rights that nature has given to man."

-- Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846)

"There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us."

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Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Finally: A Weak Flame

It took them long enough, but I've finally gotten a little flame from a wingnut blog. It's something called UNCoRRELATED: News, Views and Opinions by the Pretentious for the Dilettants -- no, I don't know why its name is all caps except for the "o", nor do I know why dilettante is spelled without the customary final "e"; other than that the blog seems to be quite aptly named.

Calling the left's call for Rove's head a "liberal wet dream", UNC says, among other things, "One Pissed Off Veteran fulfills prophecy by comparing Rove to Goebbels, calling for imprisonment and of course anal rape. If you hug a liberal--wear gloves."

So, UNC, what's your point?

UNC, an unacknowledged prophet from the planet TFH, also says later on, "Totally ignored of course is the subsequent revelation that yes, Niger was in fact selling yellowcake to Iraq..." Go ahead and follow that link if you want, but contrary to expectation, it does not take you to a citation or another website that will validate that statement. Instead it takes you to another post on his blog where he makes some vague uncited allegations about rumors about yellowcake.

Interestingly enough, he also states early in the entry, "The same emotional state that produced the pogroms, lynching of Blacks in the South, the rape of Nanking and the atrocities of Rwanda are living right here in the hearts of those nice liberals living down the block."

Jeez, UNC, that's some pretty powerful shit you're pushing there. And you have the fucking nerve to criticize me for comparing Karl Rove to Goebbels????? (And again, I really don't know why he uses a single subject, "state" with a plural verb, "are", but I guess that along with science and logic, the Right is now choosing to eschew "secular grammar".)

But let's give UNC the benefit of the doubt: What if he's right?

If so, then I think that the Administration needs to know about this. If there is actual proof that Niger was, in fact, selling the now-infamous yellowcake to Iraq (uranium, not boxes of Betty Crocker) and Joe Wilson knew about it and covered it up, and the whole WMD-inspired invasion of Iraq was NOT based on a lie, then UNC is failing to do his patriotic duty if he keeps this fact hidden.

Obviously the Bush Administration does not know this; if they did, Little Scotty McWetpants would be bragging it up to the media at every press briefing instead of trying to find a dry corner to hide in.

I can understand why UNC won't cite his sources on his blog -- then everybody would know about it! -- but why he is keeping it a secret from the Bush Adminstration is frankly beyond me.

1 Comment:

According to Global Security , iraq had not seriously persued yllowcake acquisition after 1991. Iraq had some yellowcake in its possession after the 1991 Gulf War and this was in accord with what Bush Sr administartion agreed to. Whether it was wise to leave it there is a good question for Bush, Cheney et al.

"So far, ISG has found only one offer of uranium to Baghdad since 1991—an approach Iraq appears to have turned down. In mid-May 2003, an ISG team found an Iraqi Embassy document in the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) headquarters related to an offer to sell yellowcake to Iraq. The document reveals that a Ugandan businessman approached the Iraqis with an offer to sell uranium, reportedly from the Congo. The Iraqi Embassy in Nairobi—in reporting this matter back to Baghdad on 20 May 2001—indicated it told the Ugandan that Iraq does not deal with these materials, explained the circumstances of sanctions, and said that Baghdad was not concerned about these matters right now. Figure 1 is the translation of this document."also"# Iraq’s main plant for yellowcake production prior to 1991 was at Al-Qa’im. The plant was designed, erected, and commissioned by Mechim Company of Belgium during the period 1982 to 1984. Using phosphate ore from the Akashat mine and the Prayon process, the first batch of yellowcake was delivered to the IAEC in December 1985 with approximately 168 tons delivered through 1991.# Bomb damage in 1991 destroyed the uranium extraction facility at the Al-Qa’im Superphosphate Fertilizer Plant. In 1991, inspectors found that Al-Qa’im had been heavily damaged in the war and the structure was unsafe. Visits to the site in interim years did not reveal any attempt to reestablish the plant to produce yellowcake.# During the years of intrusive inspections, the IAEA also closed and sealed the Abu Skhair mine to curtail Iraq’s secondary pilot plant production capability for acquiring uranium. A year before the closure of the Abu-Sha’ir mine under IAEA supervision in 1993, the processing plant was converted to produce “Alum” from kaolin ore. Subsequent visits by UNSCOM/IAEA continued to report inoperability of the mine. The operation established at Abu-Sha’ir in September 1988 produced 800 tons of ore, 10 tons of which were delivered to a pilot plant at the Geological Survey State Enterprise (GSSE) prior to 1991. Despite this effort, only 0.5 kg of yellowcake was obtained.# Ja’far also claims that Iraq did not attempt to build another yellowcake production plant after 1991"Finally the yellowcake as an issue in the Plamegate scandal is a red-herring. Even if Saddam had yellowcake running out of his nose, that in no way gives anyone in this or any administration the right to expose the identity of a CIA NOC agent.